


Wash it away

by TeamThor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Crying, Hugs, Hurt Thor (Marvel), Not Beta Read, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 03:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamThor/pseuds/TeamThor
Summary: Thanos had taken everything from him.His people. His best friend. His brother.But Thor had vowed revenge, and chased the mad titan across the universe to stop him.And then Thanos had taken it away from everyone else, and it was all his fault.Bruce Banner is many things. A good friend is at the forefront of that list. And he won't let his friend suffer in silence.





	Wash it away

**Author's Note:**

> More shameless Thor whump! Yay!  
> This can be read as Bruce/Thor but I didn't really include anything specific because I can't write ships well yeet
> 
> Enjoy this brain vomit i wrote at half past midnight

Over the arms, between the fingers, across the torso, the back of the neck. End on the hands.  
Over and over again he went through the routine, dipping the cloth into the water and dragging it roughly across his body.  
It was his ritual, after all. A warrior must clean himself after a battle. Wipe the dirt and blood away and start anew, even if the next fight would just ruin the work.  
It had been a lot easier on Asgard, with their royal baths that meant he could use any number of herbs to scent the water how he liked. But Midgard was different, as he well knew, and so he had to make do with what he had. 

He knew he should be taking Banner's advice, and do what all the others were probably doing. Resting.  
The fight with Thanos had taken...too much. Too much from all of them. It might have even taken the Man of Iron, but none of them had heard from Tony since his disappearance crossed the television screen.  
Thor found himself unconsciously skipping steps, and soon he was just running the cloth over his hands. Again, and again, and again. 

Thinking maybe if he scrubbed hard enough, the blood of half the universe would wash away from his hands. 

 

Bruce ventured into the room in the avengers compound that had been set aside for Thor after a long hour of pacing and contemplation. He was exhausted - doing the Hulk's job was a lot harder than he thought. Who knew 'smash' was such a tiring battle strategy?  
He'd attempted to sleep, but the universe wasn't going to be that merciful. Things had been looking up for almost a week now, after all. It was about time things plummeted back to misery again.  
He'd stared at the ceiling instead, eyes burning but unwilling to shut.  
A clap of thunder sounded outside, and he resisted the urge to count Mississippi's.  
He knew where the storm was coming from.  
And he didn't need 7 PhDs to figure out why it was happening. 

With a soft sigh, he slipped out of the bed, flinching at the feeling of bare feet against cold floor.  
Padding down the corridor, towards Thor's room, he saw way too many empty beds. Wing prototypes propped up against one corner. Old photos of the Maximoffs pinned up to a board.  
With no one there to look at them.  
He increased his pace without really noticing as his panic spiked, ever so slightly. Because if he was hurting this bad, Thor...  
Oh God, Thor. 

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached Thor's room, and was oddly relieved by the light of the moon shining through from under the door.  
Lights off might even mean the big guy was asleep. Something he felt they all sorely needed, but that no one seemed to be able to do.  
He lifted his hand, moving to knock on the door quietly to see if Thor was even awake. But the door creaked open when his knuckles brushed against them, revealing a bed that was still perfectly made, obviously untouched. 

A small sniffing sound grabbed his attention, and he caught the soft glow of the bathroom light shining through from the ensuite. 

"Thor?" He called out quietly as he shut the door behind him, taking small steps into the room. "You okay in there?" 

Muttering followed, although nothing directed at him. Snatches of Asgardian phrases mumbled in a voice that seemed half asleep reached his ears, and that alone was enough to make his brow crease in worry.  
His hand hovered momentarily against the bathroom door handle, nibbling his bottom lip anxiously. 

"Thor, buddy, I'm gonna come in. So just, uh..." Ah, what the hell. Thor had already seen the Hulk naked (a fact that horrified Bruce to this day, and one he resolved that Tony would never find out about), and he'd helped him kill his sister. He'd thought the guy was dead up until he'd landed in Wakanda. If Thor wanted him out of his bathroom, he could tell him so himself. 

The door gently opened to his touch, and he drew a sharp breath in at what he saw.  
Thor, bent over a sink, scrubbing his hands raw with what appeared to be discarded material from his cape. Silent tears ran down his face, cutting lines in whatever dirt he hadn't managed to clear away.  
Bruce didn't need to know Asgardian to feel what Thor was saying. 

"It's all my fault." Thor's voice was barely above a whisper, low and cracking with emotion when he finally registered Bruce's presence. 

Or, maybe he didn't. There wasn't really any recognition in his eyes. No semblance that made Bruce think Thor knew who he was talking to, if he was talking to anybody.  
Thor was a drowning man, grabbing onto the nearest lifeboat. 

"Come on, Thor." Bruce shook his head, keeping his movements slow and cautious. He didn't fancy being electrocuted today- flying sparks from the hulkbuster armour had already gotten him way too close for that.  
His calloused fingers wrapped around Thor's wrist tentatively, trying to direct him towards the door of the bathroom rather than outright pull him. 

A saving grace was that he seemed to be complying. Maybe he was too out of it to protest, or maybe he just didn't care. Either one was equally frightening to Bruce, who just tried to keep his friend afloat.  
Shushing claims of responsibility for the Snap, murmuring uncertain promises of a better tomorrow, and assuring Thor of his presence. That was all he could do, for now. 

He sat Thor down on the edge of the bed, and had been about to pull away to get some water when Thor had grabbed his wrist with a renewed intensity. 

"I should have aimed for the head, Banner." Tremors in his voice rose and fell with the storm outside, mismatched eyes finally looking up at Bruce and seeing him. "It's...it's my fault."

"No." He eased himself onto the mattress next to him, pulling Thor's hand off his wrist with a little too much ease. "You tried your best, Thor. I know that's a corny line but you did everything you could."

"I didn't. Banner, I didn't. I could've aimed for the head. Or the arm. Or something, I just-"

"Hey." Bruce drew his hand up, clenching around the muscle of Thor's shoulder.  
"You didn't snap that gauntlet, Thor. No one blames you." He punctuated every syllable with a small shake, because he needed Thor to hear this.  
From him, from Steve, from the whole damn world. Because he could see the seeds of doubt beginning to grow. He knew how quickly this kind of thing could destroy a person, and he wasn't going to let it happen to his friend. He couldn't. 

Thor nodded his head slowly, his eyes turning away from Bruce and focusing on some part of the wall in front of him. The shuddering took a little longer to stop, and the tears even more so. It took about an hour of Bruce's hand rubbing Thor's back for the storm outside to calm to a light drizzle, which was fortunate because by then Bruce's fingers had almost gone numb.  
In a move that sent a jolt of electricity into his arm, Thor slumped to the side, pressing his forehead into the crook of Bruce's shoulder. 

"I'm sorry." He sniffed, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. "You should be resting as well, Banner. Not spending the night here, comforting some sentimental fool-"

"Don't." Bruce twisted in his position, wrapping his arm around the gods huge shoulders. "It's alright, Thor. You'd do the same for me, for any of us. Thats kind of the point of having a team." 

He felt Thor nod again into his shoulder, and a couple more comfortable moments of silence followed. No sobbing, no shuddering. Just the gentle sound of the rain pattering against the windows, and soon the soft sound of Thor breathing deeply, slumped across Bruce's lap. 

A small smile crossed Bruce's face at that. The God of Thunder. One of the strongest Avengers. A man who had taken the force of a dying star, according to a talking racoon (which, after Korg and Meik, he really wasn't going to question).  
That same man was asleep in his lap, fingers still holding a light grip on Bruce's shirt sleeve.  
It took a great deal of tactical manoeuvres to shift the gods weight off of his lap without waking him up, and even more emotional strength to bother to get up in the first place.  
But Thor was right, to his credit.  
Bruce was exhausted.  
He brought up the bedsheet further around Thor's shoulders, taking a moment to let his mind settle after the events of the evening. 

It wasn't over. Not by a long shot. He was Bruce Banner. He'd held the God of thunder in his lap, God damnit. If he could do, that, then chances are him and the team would come up with a way to beat... whatever this was. 

"This isn't the end, Thor." Bruce paused at the door, taking one last glance at the sleeping demigod before he went back to his room.  
"You just...hang in there." 

And if the team didn't find something, it was half the universe that had been lost. That was bound to cause a fuss. A big enough fuss that someone out there, among the stars, word have something to say about it.  
As he settled into bed that night (night? Morning? Whenever), his eyes slipped shut, but his brain was buzzing.  
Someone find a plan.  
One way or another, Thanos was going to pay.


End file.
